a moment in the day: sidewalk

I'm stepping carefully down the sidewalk that, yesterday, was so covered with ice that I couldn't leave the house. When I say "carefully" I mean embarrassingly carefully, especially since most of that ice and slush is gone, but it's six in the morning and I don't trust what I see in the streetlamp glow, the slick spots along the pavement, as I make my way to the bus stop for work.

Halfway down the block, and I can't look back, because if I look back I'm just sure I'll take a header into those ice-encrusted bushes, but I don't have to look back to know he's still at our front door, watching. Had me wake him up, even though it's his day off, just so he could stand there cold at the front door and watch me all the way to the bus stop. My ally. There's no way to ever fully acknowledge how important that is, the way he's my ally.

On my lunch break, I will buy him two gluten-free peanut butter cookies.